Morning journal and courier., 1887-10-03

The entire cost of the lodging is about sev- entyfve dollars day, and of her meals from the hotel cafe about twenty-five dollars. She is not drinker of much expensive wine. Patti and Nicolini, who are high Iiv CTS and drink choice wine, pay more for their meals and less for their apartments. 4 prince of hotel patrons, however, was De Lesseps. He and his family and SCI wants paid, at well-known uptown house, the princely sum of eight hundred dollars g week. They had their own cook in the kitchen and several attendants, and lived on the very top shelf. An obscure Spanish count, of not very great wealth or fame, was at the same hotel prior to the coming of De Lesssps, and, although unknown to fame on this side of the water, he won distinction as the banner hotel customer by paying the princely sum of one thousand five hundred dollars week for his entertainment. When James McHenry, the one-time railroad mag nate, was in the zenith of his financial power, he was one of the most profitable customers of the New York hotels. He had his valet and agent and attendants with him. Nothing but the best suit of rooms in house would answer his purpose, and although light eater, he WAS not sparing as to the table. When the Duke Alexis visited this country he spent money very freely at the hotel where he stopped, and his taste for Russian dishes nearly drove the chef wild. He demanded cheese and whiskey as an appetizer in the morning; his tea was brewed in samovir, according to the Russian rule, and nothing but the choicest of champagne, of which Russians always get the best, would suit his taste.
 However, the best all the-year-round guests are the Americans, and especially those from the West, and the most profitable of these are the people on their wedding tour. One hotel on upper Broadway makes quite fea- ture of entertaining the latter class. It has bridal chambers that rent for twenty-seven dollars day, and good meal in it's cafe fhc 11n of1ou& far, lo11 other house, further up town, makes spec- 1alty of catering to people who desire to be truly select, and especially to elderly ladies of wealth who desire to keep their daugh- ters in the choicest social atmosphere of ho- tel life that money can buy. The house was owned by man who recently gave it to his daughter as her wedding portion, and she draws the handsome income ot five thousand dollars month from it. Even at this enor- nous rental the landlord, who died the other day, made 8 million dollars out of the place. His hobby was to keep the house select. There was @ well-conducted bar in an ob scure part of the hotel, but one evening some young men in the saloon raised their voices above the decorous key that was the rule of the hotel and the landlord at once closed and abolished the bar. There is per- haps no other city in the world where it would be possible for 8 hotel running at such great expense to make money without 6 bar.
 It is pretty hard to find hotel in New York that isn't making money. A landlord of one of the latest and most expensive houses built in New York died the other day worth 8 fortune. The proprietor of the house spent more than a million dollars in it's construction, but it proved so profitable from the start that it has given him no care beyond receiving the rent when it is brought to him. Indeed, it is said that he has never been inside of it.
 But all the New York places that enter- tain royalty cannot boast of having within their walls at one time representatives of such wealth as are sometimes found of a pleasant afternoon at homely little inn in the outskirts of the city at the head of Je- rome avenue. A stranger would pass it by as too humble for notice. It looks like an old-time tavern with stuccoed walls, its cell ings are low and it's uncovered floors are worn. Patronize the place and you will be surprised to find that it's charges are equal to those of any first-class hotel in New York. Its cuisine too is as good as any to be found in the metropolis. There is an air about the place of "We don't need your patronage, but if you are willing to pay the price we will entertain you" It is at this house that the Vanderbilts and the millionaire road riders have stopped ever since old Commo- dore Vanderbilt began patronizing it. Will liam H. Vanderbilt was especially fond of it, and he used to gather about him there his friends, and drop into conversation as he was seldom heard to do anywhere else. It was no uncommon thing to see representatives of three hundred million dollars gathered there at one time.